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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060995">Sound</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vetiver/pseuds/Vetiver'>Vetiver</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Senses [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action &amp; Romance, Darcy Lewis's Taser, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Jane Foster is a Good Bro, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Post-Endgame, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:21:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,738</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060995</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vetiver/pseuds/Vetiver</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Darcy's turn to go on a 'mission' - assisting Jane at a scientific conference - and Bucky doesn't love being the one left behind at the compound.</p>
<p>Story is complete; updates will be posted daily as I do a final edit of each chapter.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Senses [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564087</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>319</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunrise was starting to get a little earlier again now that they were into February, but it was still pitch dark out when Bucky was awakened by a series of squeaky meows. He didn’t need to open his eyes to locate the source, just reached a hand down and scooped the kitten over to his side of the bed before she could wake up Darcy. “Too early, Alpine.” His voice was barely audible, even to himself, but Alpine’s ears turned in his direction, and she gave a couple of experimental pounces against his metal hand before burrowing under the covers and curling up against his side. A moment later, he could feel and hear the purrs against his ribcage. On his other side, Darcy rolled over, unconsciously snuggling in as he moved his arm to accommodate her. Tucked in between his two best girls, he let himself go back to sleep.</p>
<p>By the time the light actually came through the window and hit his closed eyelids, the cat had taken off somewhere and he could feel the mattress shifting as Darcy sat up. “You sleeping in?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Mmm.” He almost never slept in, and they both knew it. “I’d like to, if I could keep you here.” Though his tone was light – and though he knew it made him a hypocrite, given that his job took him away all the time, in far worse circumstances - he’d spent the past week dreading the fact that Darcy was heading into the city for a two-day scientific conference. She’d be gone less than forty-eight hours, and it was just a couple of hours down the road, and it wasn’t like she was off to fight Hydra or space aliens or anything more dangerous than keeping Dr. Jane Foster calm and functional. But something about it had been gnawing at him.</p>
<p>Darcy, as usual, hadn’t missed a thing. “I know. But you’ll barely have time to notice I’m gone.”</p>
<p>“Hmm. I don’t know about that. Two days is a long time.” Circling his hand round her wrist, he tugged her closer.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but I’m going to wreck you before I leave. So by the time you recover… I’ll be back.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?” Sliding a hand under the loose t-shirt – his t-shirt – that Darcy had slept in, Bucky splayed out his fingers over the warm skin of her lower back. “That’s quite a threat from somebody who has to leave in, what… an hour?”</p>
<p>“Hour and a half.” She pulled the shirt off and tossed it into a corner.</p>
<p>With a deep breath, he took in the sight of her. He knew Darcy’s body as well as his own now – maybe better – but that didn’t mean he was ever going to take that for granted. “So fucking beautiful. What the hell are you doing with me?”</p>
<p>By way of reply, Darcy started inching the blanket down, a wicked grin spreading across her face when she saw that he was hard. As if he was going to be in any other kind of state, with his gorgeous girl naked in front of him, licking her lips like she had a plan. “Oh, I’ve got all kinds of things I intend on doing with you. Where do you want me to start?”</p>
<p>The possibilities just about shorted out his brain. “Lady’s choice,” he replied, though he couldn’t help reaching out a hand to pull her closer, and couldn’t help the noise he made when she straddled his thighs and ran her hands down his chest to rest on his hipbones – so close and yet so far. “God. Need you, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>“Fuck, your voice does things to me,” Darcy replied, leaning in and giving him a hard kiss, sucking a little at his lower lip as she pulled away. “Tell me what you want.”</p>
<p>“You.” Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her down on top of him. He was more comfortable showing than telling, but he could see from the grin on Darcy’s face that she wanted a real answer. “Want you all over me like this. So I can… kiss you, feel your skin on me, while… <em>jesus…</em>” He had to gasp for breath, a shudder of need running through his body as she rocked her hips against him. “While I’m inside you.”</p>
<p>Darcy gave a feral little whimper, before kissing him again. “God, Bucky, do you have any idea how hot it is when you talk like that?” she murmured, her lips brushing his ear. “Or maybe I should just show you…” With a tilt of her hips she lined herself up and met him halfway, sinking down onto his cock as he thrust up into her. “If you ever really get filthy and specific, you’d probably make me come from across the room.”</p>
<p>He tightened his arms round her, holding her still for a second while he steadied himself; even after three months of sharing his bed with her, there were still moments sometimes where it was overwhelming, a gorgeous sensory overload that he needed to adjust to so that he didn’t make a fool of himself like a teenage boy. “Fuck. That sounds like a challenge, doll.”</p>
<p>“Only if you feel inspired. You’re awfully goddamn good at the ‘show’ part of show-and-tell too.”</p>
<p>Sliding his metal hand up into her hair, he kissed her thoroughly and completely before relaxing his other arm to let her move, let her set the pace, let his whole world shrink down to their two bodies joined in this bed. “Love you, sweetheart. Love you.”</p>
<p>“Bucky,” she replied, dragging his name out into a moan as he snapped his hips up a little harder against her. “Oh fuck, so good… I love you so fucking much.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By some unspoken agreement, they drew it out, bringing each other almost to the edge so many times before it was finally impossible to resist, his beautiful Darcy coming apart in his arms, her whole body shaking as he felt the release rock through her, his own orgasm following like a call-and-response. He didn’t want it to end, didn’t want to pull out and let her climb off him, but all too soon it was time for her to clean up and get dressed. Time for him to get moving too, really, but fuck it – Wilson could get the training started with the new agents while they waited for him a few extra minutes.</p>
<p>After throwing some socks and underwear into her bag, Darcy turned and looked at him, tilting her head to one side. “You hate this, don’t you? I know you’ve been super chill about it, but it’s been radiating off you for days.”</p>
<p>Taking a breath, he ran a hand through his hair, still not quite accustomed to the fact that it was short these days. “I’m sorry, doll. I didn’t mean to be like that. I know this is important, and I <em>want </em>you to be doing important stuff. I want people to see what I already know, that you’re the smartest, most capable person in most rooms you walk into. I don’t hate that you’re doing this. Going. Pissed off at myself, mostly, that I’m getting up in my own head about it…”</p>
<p>“Don’t be.” She sat down on the bed and took his right hand in hers, running her thumb across his palm. “It’s just different, and weird, and you’re not used to being the one at home while I’m out on my version of a mission. You’re <em>allowed</em> to not be thrilled about it, you know. Just remember that I’m only going to a stuffy conference hall a couple of hours away and not heading out to battle any Big Bads. I’m probably going to be bored as hell half the time and bugging you with a million texts anyhow.” Leaning in, she kissed him, just a soft and sweet one this time. “And there’s always the reunion sex to look forward to tomorrow night.”</p>
<p>He couldn’t help but laugh. “True. And you’ll have your panic button on you?” It was standard issue for agents and many of the staff; Darcy had resisted the idea of needing one for the conference, but it was one of the only things that he’d refused to budge on when it came to her. “I know it’s just a conference, but you’ll humour your ancient, paranoid boyfriend, right?”</p>
<p>“I still think it’s overkill, but I respect the judgement of my kickass, highly skilled, superhero boyfriend, yes.” At that, her phone beeped with a tone he knew was assigned to Jane. “Shit, I’ve got to go. I love you, and I’ll see you tomorrow night. You’ll barely even have time to miss me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He started missing her the second she walked out the door.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once he got moving, the day passed pretty much like any normal Tuesday – or at least as ‘normal’ as things got at the Avengers compound. Training sessions, reviewing intel, several laps round the running trail in the lightly-falling snow, and his weekly dose of not-officially-therapy with Sam.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How are you feeling about Darcy being away?”</p>
<p>Bucky shifted in the chair: not stalling, but considering his response. “I mostly kept my mind off it today, so far. The thing that I think might fuck me up is waking up and she’s not there. I… I get these dreams sometimes, where it’s like I wake up one day and realize that Darcy… that her and me, it never happened. Sometimes I’m all the way back in Bucharest, looking over my shoulder all the time. It just feels so fucking <em>real</em>, but then I wake up and she’s there. Even if she’s just sleeping. I know it’s just one night, it’s stupid…”</p>
<p>Sam shook his head. “Those kind of dreams – being back in the traumatic situation, losing all the positive changes that’ve happened – it’s pretty common. I’ve had them. I know they suck. Maybe give her a call before you turn in. Hear her voice, you know? And knowing Darcy, she probably won’t mind if you call her in the middle of the night if you have to, if you wake up with your head in a bad place.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to wake her up. She’s got a big day tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“Listen, man. If the shoe was on the other foot – if Darcy has a dream tonight that she’s back to following Foster around some observatory in the middle of nowhere and she never came and met you, and she wakes up in a cold sweat in some hotel room somewhere… would you be pissed if she phoned and woke you up for a little reassurance?”</p>
<p>“Fuck, no.” Bucky answered automatically and then realized he was caught. “Alright, I see your point. I’ll keep my phone handy. And Alpine helps a lot, too. Sounds crazy, but I swear she knows when I’m having a bad day. Sometimes she climbs right up and sits on my chest or my shoulder. It’s nice.”</p>
<p>“Animals are great for that,” Sam replied. “That was a good call on Darcy’s part. I’m glad you’ve got her.”</p>
<p>“Got who – Darcy, or Alpine?”</p>
<p>Sam grinned at him. “Yes.”</p>
<p>There was nothing Bucky could say to that, because he knew it was true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he eventually made it back to the apartment, Alpine was waiting for him, perched on the back of the couch and unleashing a series of chirrupy meows before bounding down to swat at his bootlaces. “There you go,” he told the kitten, as he finally got his boots off. “Show ‘em who’s boss.”</p>
<p>Alpine followed him, though, sticking close by his feet – at times literally underfoot – as he stowed his gear, made a sandwich, read over a couple of intel files he’d brought back with him. The only place she didn’t traipse after him was into the bathroom; a misadventure with a sink full of water had put Alpine off that room probably for good. Closing the kitten out, Bucky stripped off his clothes, turned the shower hot, and stepped in. <em>Fourteen hours down¸</em> he told himself. <em>This time tomorrow night she’ll be back. I can do this. </em>Twenty-four hours was nothing. The same time the night before – that didn’t feel like that long ago. It was a game he had played with himself when he was a kid, when something – his birthday, last day of school – had seemed far off: think of something the same distance backwards and usually it made the time feel shorter. What had he been doing twenty-four hours before?</p>
<p>He chuckled to himself as he mentally rewound to the previous evening: it maybe wasn’t exact down to the minute, but somewhere around the same kind of just-about-bedtime hour, Darcy had gotten him keyed up enough that they hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. The memory was definitely one to linger on, the way she had kicked her pajama pants off and let him bend her over the back of the couch. Wrapping his hand around his cock with that image in his mind – the view of her legs and ass, the loose shirt bunched up around her waist, and her head turned to look over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised like it was a challenge – he gave himself a couple of minutes of sweet distraction, but after that, he had to clean up and dry off and resign himself to the fact that she was still a day away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After that, there wasn’t much else to do but go to bed and at least try to sleep some of the time away. He and Darcy had been texting on and off, as they usually did even on a regular day with both of them around the compound, but as he climbed under the covers he thought of Sam’s advice and actually dialed her number. Eleven-fifteen: the sort of hour where it could either be too late, or still find her busy with something for Jane. Her texts had already let him know that it had been a whirlwind of a day.</p>
<p>Luck was with him, though. Before the second ring, he heard her voice. “Bucky? Everything good there?”</p>
<p>He felt his whole body unwind a notch or two. “Yeah. Just wanted to hear your voice before I go to sleep.”</p>
<p>“Oh my god. Hang on a sec.” There was a pause, where he could hear the background noise getting lower before it pretty much disappeared. “Jane’s still tinkering with something, so I’m in the bathroom so we can talk. But oh my god, you are so fucking sweet. It’s good to hear you, too. I miss you.”</p>
<p>“Miss you too, doll. Glad you’re only gone till tomorrow. Is Jane okay? Why’re you two still working at this hour?”</p>
<p>Darcy laughed. “She’s fine, it’s just how she unwinds before important stuff. <em>I’m </em>not still working. I was actually just thinking about putting some white noise on my headphones and tuning her out and going to sleep, but I’d way rather hear your sexy voice in my ear.”</p>
<p>“Probably more ‘pathetic and lonely’ than ‘sexy’ right now, to be honest,” he replied, laughing a bit at himself. It wasn’t a lie, though. “I’ll be in better form by tomorrow night, I promise.”</p>
<p>“I like your form just fine, babe. Fuck, I wish the compound was a bit closer to the city so I could have just driven back tonight and got up early tomorrow. You could just put your head in my lap and I could play with your hair till you fall asleep.”</p>
<p>He felt a pleasant kind of shiver down his spine at the thought. There had been a few times she’d actually done that, lulled him right off to sleep after a tough day with her fingers rubbing the tension away from his forehead and temples, her nails running gently over his scalp. “That’d be fucking perfect right now, sweetheart. I’m going to picture that in my mind, to go off to sleep here. Thanks, doll. I love you.”</p>
<p>“Love you too,” she replied. “Sweet dreams, gorgeous.”</p>
<p>“Likewise.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Surprise..."</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the phone woke him at five-forty-five in the morning, his first thought was that he’d actually managed to sleep through the night. Following hot on its heels was the question of who the hell was calling at that hour; snatching the phone up off the nightstand, he saw Rhodes’ name. “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“It’s not an emergency,” Rhodes began – which Bucky already knew, because there would have been actual alerts and alarms happening if it were. “But you might want to come down here and have a look at some of this chatter we’re decrypting.”</p>
<p>“Hydra?” It was usually Hydra, if they were looking for his expertise.</p>
<p>“Uh… not sure who’s involved yet.” Rhodes paused. “But Foster’s name comes up.”</p>
<p>“Fuck.” Standing up out of bed, he set the phone down and raised his voice a little as he grabbed the previous day’s clothes off the floor and started pulling them back on. “Be right there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Going into mission mode gave him focus and clarity, and that was the only thing allowing him to keep his head level as he stalked down the corridors. Part of him was surprised there wasn’t a target on Foster’s back more often, given the importance of her research and her connection to Thor. It was why he’d insisted on Darcy wearing a panic button at the conference – but he hadn’t really expected to get this call. When he banged open the door to the high-clearance computer lab, a couple of analysts scattered like mice, leaving him alone with Rhodes. “What have we got?”</p>
<p>Rhodes shook his head. “Maybe nothing, maybe something.” He passed over a printout of a conversation. “Somebody seems to know a lot about Foster’s past work – before Thanos and the snap - but how current they are on the stuff she’s working on here, I’m not sure. But this.” He tapped a line further down the page, that Bucky hadn’t quite gotten to yet. “They’ve got the address of the conference, and the time of her keynote presentation.”</p>
<p>“I’m going.” Straightening up, he looked Rhodes in the eye, daring him to disagree, but the other man nodded.</p>
<p>“Figured you would. Just remember – this may still be nothing. I’ll let you judge how much you want to tell Foster and Lewis, but keep this as an undercover op as long as it’s safe all round. If it <em>is</em> something, we don’t want to spook them and lose the trail. You want backup?”</p>
<p>Bucky gave it a second’s thought. “Just put whoever’s already in the city on standby. I can recon easier by myself.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ten minutes later, he was pulling out of the garage, casually dressed but armed to the teeth. Though the jet was tempting, his rational side had to agree with Rhodes that it attracted more attention than it was worth, and that the threat – if there truly was one – was going to come to a head closer to the time of Jane’s presentation. Where the roads were still quiet near the compound, he switched into self-drive mode and pulled up the conference hall schematic on the heads-up display, cataloguing exits, probable sightlines, and back hallways. There was no point alarming Darcy yet, so for the moment he just sent her a quick text asking what her day looked like.</p>
<p>
  <em>Just waiting for coffee now. Jane wants to be there by 9:30 to see somebody’s thing about quantum something or other. </em>
</p>
<p><em>You going with her? </em>It would be easier to protect them if they stayed together.</p>
<p>
  <em>Yeah. Need to make sure she doesn’t geek out too much afterwards and miss her own presentation. I miss you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ll see you soon, doll. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By nine-fifteen he was stalking the hallways of the Javits Center, cap pulled low over his eyes, silicone glove over his metal hand, with intel chatter on an earpiece and a 3D schematic of the building on his phone. The session on Quantum Information Theory was at the far end of the conference, and he was only partway there when a voice, clearly computer-altered, crackled through the feed he was monitoring. <em>“I have eyes on Jane Foster.”</em></p>
<p>“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, picking up his pace enough that he attracted a few turned heads. How many of them were there? And why were they communicating on a practically open channel? There was nothing about this situation that he liked the look of. Maybe he should have brought Wilson.</p>
<p>And then, echoed in stereo between his earpiece and his phone, an alarm.</p>
<p>Darcy’s panic button.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The only silver lining was that activating the panic button also activated a Stark-tech-precise GPS tracker, and with a quick glance at his phone he could see that Darcy was moving away from the lecture hall toward a back corridor. Moving fast: getting away from the threat, he hoped. Breaking into a run, he headed that way, noting that he seemed to be causing the only disturbance as far as the people around him were concerned. Whoever had spooked Darcy, they had done it quietly, then, away from the crowd. That could be a good thing, or it could be extraordinarily bad.</p>
<p>A security door stood between him and the corridor; pulling the card reader out of the wall with his metal hand sufficed to open it, but the fact that he’d found it intact meant that somebody had a security pass. There was no sign of anyone in the hall; he was about to check the GPS display when he heard Darcy’s voice, muffled behind one of the doors further down, telling someone to go fuck themselves.</p>
<p><em>Pro: Alive and conscious</em>. <em>Con: Antagonizing the hostiles. </em>It ran across his brain automatically, a split-second catalogue of the situation as he made a silent approach, determining they were behind the third door along.</p>
<p>Listening at the door to try and quickly assess numbers and position, he heard the crackle of a taser and a decidedly masculine grunt of pain, followed by a brief silence, suggesting that there was only one hostile. Not incapacitated, though, because the voice that broke the silence was low and in control. “I didn’t want to make this difficult, but you will regret that.”</p>
<p>Time to move: gun in hand, Bucky kicked in the door. “I don’t think she will, actually.”</p>
<p>“Bucky!” Darcy shrieked, tugging Jane out of a corner and getting behind him.</p>
<p>The hostile – tall and thin, with a face that seemed vaguely familiar – narrowed his eyes. “Who the hell is Bucky?”</p>
<p>Bucky pointed the gun at the man’s forehead and advanced a step. “Let’s start with who the hell are <em>you.</em>”</p>
<p>He thought the man was reaching for a weapon, but instead a flash of light came at him, something like what he’d seen Wanda do in the field, and it was only by the skin of his teeth that he got his left arm up to block it. Another step got him in range and he grabbed the hostile by the shirt, pressing the gun against his jaw. “I’ll ask again.”</p>
<p>Bucky wasn’t expecting Jane’s voice to be the one he heard next. “Loki. That’s Loki.”</p>
<p>“Loki’s supposed to be dead.” <em>At least in this dimension</em>, his brain supplied. But Steve had been able to cross back over, briefly.</p>
<p>“I was,” Loki replied. The fight seemed to sap out of him, and Bucky began to take in secondary details, the fact that Loki looked gaunt and ashen, clothes ragged, shoulders sagging. However, his brain also supplied the fact that Loki was on file as a highly-skilled magic user and a consummate liar. There were two possibilities he could see: either this was the Loki who had taken the Tesseract and vanished in the divergent 2012 that Steve had visited, or this was the Loki supposedly killed by Thanos. Bucky’s money was on the first option. Either way, he had to be dealt with.</p>
<p>“Move and I fire.” Tapping his earpiece, he switched it back to two-way comms. “I need backup <em>now.</em>” The replies were quick:</p>
<p>“War Machine is enroute.”</p>
<p>“Alpha Team is closing on your location.”</p>
<p>“Falcon is on the ground. What are we looking at?”</p>
<p>“Fuck if I know,” Bucky replied honestly.</p>
<p>The only part of Loki that was moving were his eyes, and Bucky had a feeling he could hear well enough to pick up on the comms – a fact that was confirmed when the green eyes narrowed. “Why is my <em>brother</em> not responding to this?”</p>
<p>Jane started to say something, maybe about to admit that Thor was off-world, but a fractional shake of Bucky’s head silenced her. He still had no clue what this puzzle was supposed to be, but he was starting to put pieces together. “Is that what this is? Coming for Dr. Foster to try and get at Thor?”</p>
<p>Loki sighed heavily. “You could say that.”</p>
<p>“Barnes, you in there?” It was Sam’s voice from the hallway, and a second later the door was kicked inwards again. “What the fuck? Is that…?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Loki replied, before Bucky could. “I presume I am under arrest?”</p>
<p>Wilson shot Bucky a look that clearly said <em>what the hell?</em>, as they moved in to put restraints on their now-eerily-compliant prisoner. Within a few moments, the door banged in yet again, this time to admit Rhodes in full gear, the Alpha tactical team on his heels. With only a couple of extra blinks revealing his surprise, Rhodes took over, giving orders to call in a secure prisoner transport and cordon off an exit route. “Wilson and I will oversee the transfer, Alpha team supporting. Barnes, you get Foster and Lewis back to the compound.”</p>
<p>“<em>After</em> my presentation,” Jane said, at which everyone looked around at each other, then at Bucky.</p>
<p>“Seems like the threat is under control,” he replied. “If Dr. Foster still wants to do it, I’m sure as hell not gonna tell her no.”</p>
<p>Rhodes opened his mouth, shut it again, and shook his head. “Fine. But straight back to base afterwards, and Fury’s gonna need debrief from <em>all </em>of you. <em>As soon as you get back</em>, Barnes. No detours.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rest of them trooped out in a phalanx, surrounding Loki, leaving Bucky alone with the two women, and Darcy flung her arms around him the moment the door closed. “You alright, sweetheart?” he asked, letting his body ease a little for the first time that day as he pulled her closer and ran his right hand through her hair. “He didn’t hurt either of you?”</p>
<p>“No. I mean, no, he didn’t hurt us,” she replied. “But fuck, was I ever glad to hear you busting in the door. How are you even here? How did you know?”</p>
<p>“Some intel came through early this morning, really vague. Didn’t know what to expect but it sure as hell wasn’t him.”</p>
<p>“I…” Jane spoke up, paused, then started again when Bucky turned his head to look at her. “I don’t think he planned to hurt us. I mean, I definitely wasn’t going to bet on that in the moment, but he… I don’t know. I… I don’t know. I can’t think about this right now. I need to give my talk in half an hour.”</p>
<p>“You really still okay to go ahead with that?”</p>
<p>With her arms still tightly around him, Darcy laughed against his chest. “You really don’t know Jane that well, do you? C’mon, let’s get her to her thing and you can be the sexiest bodyguard ever while she does The Science. And then we can go <em>home.</em> Okay?”</p>
<p>Leaning down, he kissed her forehead. “You got it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If anyone in the conference hall had any idea that the esteemed Dr. Jane Foster and her lab manager had been briefly kidnapped by an Asgardian war criminal just moments before, it didn’t show. More importantly as far as Bucky was concerned, there was no suggestion so far that Loki had been working with anyone else who might attempt to finish the job. The room was filled to capacity with scientists, most of them following Jane’s every word with rapt attention.</p>
<p>Darcy was stationed at a small table off to one side, where she had set up Jane’s audio-visual material to start running, but there was nothing else particular for her to do once it was going, or at least not that Bucky could see. He’d taken up a position standing just behind her, where he could survey the whole room and keep Darcy, Jane, and both exits in his view at all times.</p>
<p>About five minutes in, Darcy caught his eye and discreetly patted the chair next to hers, but he gave a slight shake of his head; as much as he would have loved to just sit down with his girl, preferably wrap himself around her, he wasn’t going to be able to take a breath and do that until they were somewhere more secure.</p>
<p>She had ideas of her own, though, as usual. When he declined her offer to sit, she got up from the table and came to stand beside him: not touching, but close enough that he could smell her perfume, see the almost invisible black-on-black pinstripes of her blouse. Most of his attention had to stay on the room, but in brief glances he took stock of her appearance: the blouse and skirt and heels that made her look like she meant business, her glasses on and hair up in a sleek ponytail, somehow hardly even mussed despite her tangle with Loki. She looked like she could boss you around and you’d thank her for it, and he wondered for probably the thousandth time how on earth he’d gotten so lucky. “You okay, doll?” he asked, his voice pitched for her ears only.</p>
<p>“Yeah. Because you’re here,” she replied in an undertone. “My own goddamn avenging angel. Most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”</p>
<p>At that, he had to look down at the floor for a moment, feeling a flush spread across his cheeks. “Likewise.”</p>
<p>They listened to Jane’s voice for a little while, before Darcy ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip and tilted her head to look up at him. “No, I mean… I really need you to pin me up against a wall or bend me over a table and fuck me into next Tuesday. As soon as humanly possible. Like, preferably right now.”</p>
<p>For a second he forgot how to breathe. Then he swallowed hard, sucked some air back into his lungs, and willed his cock not to listen to anything Darcy had just said. “That’s the adrenaline talking, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“It is.” After another quick scan of the room, he took a second to look her in the eye properly. “We’re going to finish up here, get your things from the hotel, make sure you get something to eat on the way back, go through debrief back at the compound, and make sure you’re still okay after all that. And <em>then</em>, we will go home, and I will do anything you want.”</p>
<p>“Anything?”</p>
<p>“For you?” he asked, letting the tips of their fingers just brush together. “Anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After the talk was over, it took longer than he would have liked to extricate Jane from her audience, get Darcy and Jane packed up at their hotel, and get them both bundled into the car and pointed back out of the city. Once they were on the road, in one piece, with no sign of anyone tailing them, he wanted to finally breathe. But he needed to stay sharp – and not just because there were still all kinds of question marks hanging over Loki and just what the fuck he was doing alive, in their timeline, and trying to apparently kidnap Jane and Darcy. It wasn’t that – or it wasn’t just that. It was the knowledge, for now hovering just on the edge of his consciousness, that Darcy had legitimately been in danger that morning. Sure, she was fine. Yeah, he was the one who’d saved her. But he knew that once that knowledge really sank in, it was going to hit hard. So for the moment, he focused on Jane’s chatter and Darcy’s off-key humming along to some song on the radio.</p>
<p>About halfway back, Darcy put her hand on his thigh. “Doll, I’m driving,” he said quietly, raising an eyebrow at her.</p>
<p>“I know. Not like that. I just…”</p>
<p>She didn’t elaborate, didn’t say whether it was for his benefit or hers, but the contact felt good. He lowered his own hand and gave hers a quick squeeze, before returning his attention to the road. “How often have you been debriefed before? Both of you,” he asked, once they got closer to the compound.</p>
<p>Darcy kept her hand on his leg as she turned her head to look at Jane in the back seat. “There was SHIELD, when Thor first came, but they were kind of more the ‘steal your equipment and ask questions later’ types. Did anybody really sit us down after the Convergence thing? I don’t even remember, it was all a blur.”</p>
<p>“They did,” Jane confirmed. “You’re right, though, I don’t remember most of the details. Thor had just left…”</p>
<p>“And Erik was all messed up and Ian was terrified, I remember now. That was a mess. Erik was Jane’s mentor,” Darcy added, for his benefit. “Ian… well, I told you about him.”</p>
<p>“Don’t know why you wasted your time on him,” Bucky couldn’t help grumbling, although at least that made Darcy laugh a little. “If you’ve never been debriefed by Nick Fury, be prepared that he’s going to expect details. Sometimes a lot of them. Just do your best at be as accurate as you can, but don’t ramble. You might be waiting around for a while, depending who he wants to talk to first.”</p>
<p>“Do I…” Darcy began. “Do we have to go in there one at a time? Or can you stay?”</p>
<p>He squeezed her little hand again. “I’ll stay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rest of the drive was quiet, until they pulled into the underground garage back at the compound. “I guess we’ll take our stuff with us?” Darcy asked. With a heavy sigh, she added, “They said no detours, right?”</p>
<p>Jane pulled her bag out of the back and clicked the handle up so she could pull it on its wheels. “I mean, don’t you want to get this over with? I sure as hell do.” And then she looked over her shoulder, eyes flicking from Darcy to Bucky and back again. “Look, I am not going to cover for you with Nick Fury, but what I <em>will</em> do is walk very, <em>very</em> slowly from the car to the elevator and you can catch up with me there.”</p>
<p>Turning her back on them, she started for the elevator at a snail’s pace. For a second, Bucky just stared, until Darcy’s arms slid around him from behind. “Every once in a while, she gets it,” she said, with a hint of a laugh. “So, hero of my goddamn life, what’s a girl gotta do to get a kiss around here?”</p>
<p>He twisted round to face her, and lifted his right hand to cradle her cheek. “Some hero I am, making you ask,” he replied, spreading out his left hand against her back as he leaned down, conscious of every little breath and movement almost as if this was their first time, at first just brushing his lips against hers before Darcy gave a little sound in the back of her throat and went in for the kill. Her mouth opening on his, she grazed his lower lip with her teeth before her tongue slid out to meet his, her hands sliding down to his ass to pull their bodies closer together. “God, sweetheart, we’d better hold that thought for just a little longer,” he gasped, leaning his forehead against hers.</p>
<p>“Mmm, if we have to,” she replied. “Jane’s almost to the elevator. And I guess you don’t want to be walking into debrief with a full salute. But I haven’t forgotten what you said. Anything I want, later.”</p>
<p>“That’s a promise I have no problem keeping.” With his thumb, he tidied up a little smudge of her lipstick and then ran the back of his hand over his mouth to clean himself up a bit. “I love you, Darcy. You have no fucking idea how happy I am that you’re here in one piece right now.”</p>
<p>Raising one eyebrow, she looked at him for a second as if he was being completely fucking dense. “Don’t I? Every mission you go on?”</p>
<p>She was right. “What am I saying… Of course you know. You sure you still want to take this dumbass home after all this?”</p>
<p>Darcy grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down for one more quick kiss. “Obviously. You’re <em>my</em> dumbass, after all.”</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He did have to leave Darcy and Jane waiting outside Fury’s office while he went in for his own debriefing. “Barnes. About time you joined us,” Fury said, though no one else was in the room. Tapping a button on the desk, Fury activated a large display screen on the wall, which showed a feed from one of the interrogation rooms. Bucky wasn’t surprised to see Loki sitting in a chair, hands cuffed to the bar on the table. The fact that Banner was in there with him: that was a little more unexpected, as was the fact that they seemed to be having a conversation rather than a confrontation. Loki was speaking, with urgency but not in an overtly hostile manner, and Bruce was nodding.</p>
<p>“Is there audio to this?” Bucky asked.</p>
<p>Fury pressed another button and the sound kicked in, partway through a sentence. “…And it finally brought me here. To Midgard – Earth,” Loki was saying. “To possibly the least appropriate place possible, with only a fraction of my magic left. Not enough to track down my brother. So when I heard the name of his erstwhile beloved…” He made a move as if he wanted to shrug, but was restricted by the cuffs.</p>
<p>“Alright. Listen. We should be able to get through to Thor, and when he gets back you know he’s gonna need to hear the same things you told me. Meanwhile… they’re not gonna just let you go, but I’ll see what I can do.”</p>
<p>Bucky furrowed his brow at the screen. “The hell?” But he didn’t have to wonder long. After a pause where Fury just drummed his fingertips on the tabletop, the other door to the office opened and Banner stepped in.</p>
<p>“Well?” Fury prompted.</p>
<p>Banner raised a large green hand and scratched the back of his neck. “Well. This is gonna sound crazy – like anything around here <em>isn’t</em> crazy – but I believe him. I’m pretty sure that’s twenty-seventeen Loki, the one who helped us save the Asgardians and then got strangled by Thanos. Seems like something – maybe whatever it is he calls magic – kept him just slightly alive, in some kind of stasis, in space, till a ship picked him up and he came to in a cargo hold. Bit like Quill and company finding Thor. Then he kind of alternated bargaining for passage on ships, and using magic where he could to get closer to here because it was Thor’s last known destination. Wound up in Manhattan still beat up and without much magic left, and made some bad life choices when he heard Jane was going to be there.”</p>
<p>“And all that chatter?” Bucky asked.</p>
<p>“Bait, I guess,” Banner replied. “Pretty sure he was just hoping to draw Thor out.”</p>
<p>“And <em>why</em> is he <em>here</em>?” Fury folded his arms across his chest.</p>
<p>Banner raised his eyebrows. “Honestly? I think partly that he’s got nowhere else to turn, but I think he… I don’t know, maybe it’s not the nuttiest thing in the world that he might want to contribute something. New York, the Chitauri, that was…” He broke off for a moment. “That was Thanos. Mind control,” he added, with a sidelong look as if he was afraid it was an offensive thing to say in Bucky’s presencee.</p>
<p>“Might I remind you, Loki’s got plenty in his file besides New York,” Fury pointed out.</p>
<p>Bruce threw up his hands. “Look, none of this is my call. You asked for my take, and I’m giving it to you. What we need to do is get Thor the hell back here and see if he agrees with me.”</p>
<p>“We’ve put a call out for Thor.”</p>
<p>“Good. Let me know when he gets back.”</p>
<p>Fury’s mouth was set in a firm line. “He’s kinda hard to miss. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve still got to debrief Barnes, <em>and</em> Foster, <em>and </em>Lewis about this bullshit.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Bucky went through the debriefing almost on autopilot, his mind bouncing back and forth between the question of what the fuck Loki was really up to, and the mounting after-the-fact anxiety of all the <em>what might have happened</em> where Darcy was concerned. It was a relief when she and Jane were called in for their side of the story, and even more so to feel Darcy’s hand close around his wrist and tug him to sit down in the chair next to hers.</p>
<p>“Where’s Thor?” Jane asked, before anyone else could say anything. “He needs to know about this. Whichever version of Loki it is. It’s his <em>brother</em>. And for what it’s worth, I think this is the real one. I mean, the Loki who was with him for the Dark Elves and Sakaar and Hela and everything. He could have done a lot worse than he did today.”</p>
<p>“Uh, dude, I think grabbing us and forcing us into that back room doesn’t exactly qualify as <em>good</em>,” Darcy countered.</p>
<p>“I just… I think we should all keep an open mind until Thor figures out which version of his brother that was today. <em>His brother </em>who he thought was <em>dead.</em> He’s…”</p>
<p>“Can we just debrief the incident? You can save the editorial opinion pieces for your own time,” Fury interjected, looking like he was doing his level best to bore a hole through everyone in the room with his one visible eye.</p>
<p>“Loki saved my life,” Jane said, more quietly. “During the Convergence.”</p>
<p>Fury exhaled audibly. “Noted. How about you tell me what happened <em>today.</em>”</p>
<p>“We were just… heading to a conference session, and he came out of nowhere,” Jane replied.</p>
<p>“Came out of nowhere,” Fury echoed, not quite making it a question.</p>
<p>Darcy leaned forward, biting her lower lip for a second. “I don’t know if it was literally. Can he do that, literally? I guess he can. But not sure that he did. It was crowded. Like, crowded enough that I would have had a hand on my purse if it was the subway. Somebody bumped into us and I was just going to tell them to watch themselves… but then he grabbed me by the arm and Janey by her shirt collar and was just like ‘<em>move’</em> and pushed us through the doors into the hall.”</p>
<p>“The security doors?”</p>
<p>“He did a thing,” Darcy replied. “Kind of mumbled something under his breath and there was this green glow, not really on the panel but in front of it, and it opened. At first I was like ‘oh shit, this dude can do magic like Wanda’, and then I clued in <em>who</em> we know of that can do magic like Wanda and that’s when it got scary. He shoved us into this back room, like a storage room, and then I started getting freaked out about whether or not he could beam us off somewhere – if he can do that rainbow sky beam thingy that landed Thor here the first time.”</p>
<p>“The Einstein-Rosen bridge,” Jane corrected.</p>
<p>“Yeah, that.” Darcy’s voice was speeding up – one of her anxiety tells – and Bucky felt his heartrate kicking up in response. For his own benefit as much as hers, he took her hand, and was rewarded with a quick smile before she continued. “So when I thought that maybe that was his plan, to take us who the hell knows where, I started getting more angry than scared.”</p>
<p>“That’s how I found you,” Bucky told her, running his thumb of the back of her hand. “The GPS would have done it too, but I heard you cursing him out from down the hall.”</p>
<p>She beamed at him. “And then you blasted in and saved the fucking day.”</p>
<p>“Not before you tased him. That was pretty badass, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>“Oh my god,” Jane exclaimed. “You’ve tasered Thor AND Loki. Both the brothers.”</p>
<p>That made Darcy laugh. “Too bad I couldn’t have got their dad and their bitch of a sister too, huh?”</p>
<p><em>“IF </em>I’m not interrupting anything,” Fury said, glaring at them. When silence fell, he added, “Tell me about the effects of the taser on him.”</p>
<p>“Not much. It knocked him down but not out. He was starting to get back up in maybe… thirty seconds? He looked rough afterwards,” Darcy added. “But I mean, he looked rough in general, at least compared to the footage from when he invaded New York. Didn’t you think he looked bad, Jane? I mean, you’ve met the guy.”</p>
<p>Fury leaned back in his chair and threw up his hands. “Alright, this lines us up with what I’ve already heard from you, Barnes.”</p>
<p>“Can we go?” Darcy asked.</p>
<p>“Yes. Get the hell out of my office. Please.”</p>
<p>“Fucking finally,” Darcy muttered, then turned to grin at Bucky. “Let’s go home.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you really think that’s the… well, ‘good’ Loki seems like too strong a term, but the ‘not-so-bad, more recent’ Loki?” Darcy asked, as they made their way down the quiet corridor.</p>
<p>Bucky shrugged. “I guess that’s for Thor to say, but Bruce seemed convinced. I’m not feeling too charitable towards him, whichever one he is, given everything today.” If he never heard the name Loki again, it would be fine with him.</p>
<p>As they reached their door, Darcy pressed her thumb to the sensor to open it. “Could have been worse.”</p>
<p>“I… I know that all too well, sweetheart. I’m gonna need to process that thought a little at a time so I don’t wake up screaming.” Letting the door close behind them, he leaned back against it and took a deep breath. “C’mere.”</p>
<p>Darcy fit into his arms like she’d always belonged there, and he had a feeling it was exactly what they both needed. “I’m here. And <em>you’re</em> here,” she added, wrapping her arms more tightly around his back and burying her face in the front of his shirt. “My fucking hero. I love you.”</p>
<p>He closed his eyes, breathed in her scent, and let her words echo around in his head till they started to overwrite the parts of the day he’d rather forget. “Love you,” he echoed. “Do you want this off?” he added, running his hand over her hair to the elastic that kept it all smoothed back.</p>
<p>“Yeah, we’ll start there,” she replied, a hint of laughter in her voice turning to a happy purr as he released her hair from the ponytail and ran his fingers over her scalp. “Now that it’s all over, would it be terrible of me to say that you kicking in that door and then using your metal arm to block Loki’s magic was probably the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen?”</p>
<p>“Doll, you’ve got a strange sense of what’s sexy, but I guess I should be glad of it.”</p>
<p>Her hands went from clinging onto him, to sliding over his back, her fingertips sending pleasant little chills up his spine. “What’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen?”</p>
<p>“Well, there was this one nurse, when I was with the Commandos…” he joked, then had to yelp as Darcy pinched his side. “Kidding, sweetheart, kidding. How could anybody compete with you?”</p>
<p>“Hmm. Flattering, but not very specific.”</p>
<p>He thought about it, feeling his body start to warm up as he ran over the last few months of his life in his mind’s eye; Darcy had certainly provided plenty of possibilities. “First photo you ever sent me.”</p>
<p>She looked up at him as if it wasn’t the answer she’d expected. “The one in the shower?”</p>
<p>“Mmm, that one was <em>very</em> nice, but I mean the real first photo of you that you sent me. When I was in New Asgard with Thor, and you sent me that one where you looked like you were about to undo your blouse.”</p>
<p>“Really?  That one was so… tame. Wholesome, almost.”</p>
<p>With his thumb, he traced the contour of her lower lip. “Yeah, but… it was the first thing that really made me feel like… like a man again. Like I could get ideas and maybe actually act on them.”</p>
<p>Darcy licked her lips, letting her tongue flick against his thumb as well. “What kind of ideas?”</p>
<p>“The good kind.”</p>
<p>“Anything I want, right?” Looking up to meet his eye, she raised one eyebrow. “You said anything I wanted, when we got home. I think the first thing I want is for you to tell me <em>exactly</em> what kind of things are on your mind right now. What you want to do to me. Or me to do to you.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>In reply, she tilted her hips against him and squirmed a little, in a way that made his cock pay attention. “Yeah. Or what you were thinking about last night when you got yourself off.”</p>
<p>He swallowed hard. “How’d you know?”</p>
<p>Darcy tilted her head back with a laugh, then came up on her tiptoes and kissed him, her tongue just teasing at his for a moment. “Lucky guess. But <em>fuck</em>, I love the fact that you are basically sex on legs and yet you’re blushing right now over this. For the record, I <em>definitely</em> indulge in the solo sexytimes whenever you’re on overnight missions.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?”</p>
<p>“Mmm-hmm. I’ll show you sometime. But right now… I asked you a question.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were still just barely inside the apartment, and he took a moment to kick his boots off – partly because he wanted to move this somewhere more comfortable, and partly to buy himself a little time to think of what to say. Images in his head: he had plenty of those, but thinking about how to put them into words in a way that was worthy of the woman in front of him, that was the challenge. “Last night, I was thinking about that night before you left,” he began, taking her hand and rubbing his thumb over her palm. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, so he kept his focus on their intertwined hands. “When you were leaning over the back of the couch and looking at me like you were impatient.”</p>
<p>“That’s because I <em>was</em> impatient,” she replied. “Go on.”</p>
<p>“And I was kinda dumbstruck, just staring at you in that pose. Living room, all the lights on.” He took a step forward, starting to slowly back her up towards the bedroom. “Your legs, your ass… which I fuckin’ <em>love,</em>” he added, as Darcy made a slight face. “And… and even just looking, I could tell that you were wet, knew how good it was gonna feel.”</p>
<p>“Jesus, Bucky. We can have a replay of that right now, you know.”</p>
<p>It was tempting. But now that he was on a roll – and now that he could see how it was affecting her, him talking like this – he kept on going, as they took a couple more shuffling steps towards the bed. “Well, you asked me two things, right? What I was thinking about when I was in the shower last night, and what I want to do right now. What I want to do right now is take you to bed, take all these pretty clothes off you, and taste every single inch of your skin.” By way of making his point, he lifted her hand and took the tip of her index finger into his mouth, sucking a little before moving on to each of her other fingers in turn. “I want to take my time, make you feel so good that you forget everything else about today.”</p>
<p>Darcy was flushed, as if they’d already been up to a lot more than just talking, her lips parted, her eyes huge. “Think I might forget my own <em>name</em>.”</p>
<p>“That sounds like a challenge.” Fuck, he loved her so much it made his head spin. Even in younger, simpler days, he’d never dreamed it could be like this. “And then, when I’ve made you feel so good that you’re all trembly and you’ve got that big dreamy smile and you tell me that your limbs don’t work any more… that’s my favourite thing in the damn world, you know that? Then, I’m going to get your legs up on my shoulders, so that I can get so deep into you that we’re gonna forget where I end and you start, and I’m gonna spend the rest of the night making love to you.”</p>
<p>“You never call it fucking,” Darcy said, barely above a whisper, as her legs hit the edge of the bed and she reached up to wrap her free hand round the back of his neck. “You say ‘fuck’ all the time, but you never call it fucking.”</p>
<p>“That’s because it’s not. Not for you and me. So… am I doing okay? Yesterday morning,” he added, when she furrowed her brow at him. “You said something about getting ‘filthy and specific’.”</p>
<p>“Are you kidding?” Pulling him down, she kissed him hard, a moan in the back of her throat that he felt more than heard. “That was filthy and hot and romantic and I love you so fucking much. And if you don’t start taking off my clothes and doing all that stuff you talked about <em>right now</em>, I might literally die.”</p>
<p>He laughed, his fingers already on the tiny buttons of her blouse. It was a fiddly task, but each little bit of skin revealed was just adding to the delicious anticipation. “Me too, sweetheart. Believe me.” The skirt was easier, just a zip and then helping her shimmy out of it, and though her bra and panties were pretty, he made quick work of those as well.</p>
<p>“What about you?”</p>
<p>“In good time,” he replied, already moving to crawl onto the bed.</p>
<p>Darcy shook her head, though. “If we’re still in the ‘anything I want’ policy, then I want to be able to see all of you, too. C’mon, off,” she added, giving a little tug at the shoulder of his shirt. “You are a goddamn work of art, James Buchanan Barnes, and if you think there’s ever a minute that I don’t want to be looking at you naked, you’re wrong.”</p>
<p>About ten different thoughts ran through his head and wanted to spill out of his mouth, ranging from <em>You’re crazy, doll</em> to <em>Marry me</em> and several shades in between, but what he settled for as he tugged the shirt over his head was “I don’t deserve you, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>“Yes, you fucking do. Now get those pants off and get over here, for real.”</p>
<p>He kicked the tactical pants and the heavy belt off, toed out of his socks, and stripped off his briefs, feeling the heat of Darcy’s gaze on him the whole time. Against all odds, she really did make him feel like he was worth looking at. “Fuck, I want to do all those things I just described. Really slowly, drive you out of your mind.” Sitting down on the bed, he ran his left hand down the soft skin of her thigh, watching the contrast between metal and flesh. “But it’s hard to be patient when you’re so damn beautiful.” Stretching out beside her, he pulled her thigh up over his, opening her up to him, plastering his body against hers as he kissed her, first her mouth and then down the line of her jaw to her ear. “Can’t believe you’re mine.” From there, he slid down the bed, maybe not getting every inch of her skin like he’d promised but tasting a path along the curve of her neck, over her collarbone and exploring the curve of one breast, then the other, as he pushed her gently onto her back.</p>
<p>“Oh, you better fucking believe I’m yours,” she replied, the last word hitching on a gasp as he circled her nipple with his tongue. “You’re… oh…” She arched her back and shivered a little as he ducked his head and licked a broad stripe down the centre of her stomach. “You’re stuck with me forever.”</p>
<p>Settling himself between her thighs, he was tempted to ask her to make that official. “Perfect.” It was the word that summed it all up: his response to what she’d said, everything about her, not to mention his present location and view and what was about to happen. He pressed his thumbs into her inner thighs, prompting her to open up wider before he dove in, unable to help a moan at the taste of her, familiar and gorgeous and frankly fucking addictive.</p>
<p>“Oh god, Bucky, like that. Like that.” She sounded like she was already close, especially when he closed his lips over her clit and sucked at her gently. “God, wait, come up here,” she gasped, tugging at his hair. She didn’t often ask him to stop partway through, but he could tell from her voice that it wasn’t because she didn’t like it. “Want you inside me when I come.”</p>
<p>Dizzy with how much he wanted her, it took him a moment to shift up and over her, and by the time he lined himself up she was running her nails down his back to grab his ass, trying to hurry things up. Sliding his cock inside her, he couldn’t help a moan that might have been audible next door, but he didn’t think he’d ever quite get used to how goddamn perfect she felt around him. “Better?” he asked, as he bottomed out inside her, their bodies as close together as you could get.</p>
<p>“I need…” she breathed. “Need it fast. Need to come <em>now</em>. Take our time later.”</p>
<p>“I’ve got you, sweetheart. Wanna give you what you need.” Pulling almost out, he snapped his hips back into her, and again, and again, at first watching her tells for how to set the rhythm and then just letting himself get lost in it, in <em>her</em>, in her gasps of praise and her accelerating whimpers of pleasure and the slap of skin on skin mirrored in the soft thud of the padded headboard against the wall. It was like a roller coaster ride, intense and dizzy and over in minutes, leaving them tangled up and unwilling to extricate their sweaty limbs from each other. “Fuck, Darcy. Maybe I’m the one whose legs don’t work anymore this time.”</p>
<p>She gave him a sloppy, slow kiss. “Makes two of us. God, I suddenly just… needed that. Sorry.”</p>
<p>“Oh god, love, don’t you ever, ever apologize for something like that.” He ran a hand over her hair, letting his metal fingers card out a couple of tangles. “Specially not after a day like today. I said anything you want, and I meant it. Still mean it.”</p>
<p>“You know that ‘anything I want’ pretty much just means ‘you’, right?”</p>
<p>He wrapped her up in his arms and buried his face in her hair, his heart thumping fast and not only because of what they’d just been doing. “The feeling’s mutual, doll.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the flash and the noise startled him awake, his first instinct was to throw his body over Darcy’s in case of danger, though it only took another half-second to clue in to the crackle of electricity and the smell of ozone.</p>
<p>“Fucking Thor,” Darcy mumbled. “Always gotta be a drama queen. Although as midnight wakeup calls go, I don’t mind this,” she added, giving Bucky a sleepy grin and running a hand over his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Think it’s more like three in the morning, doll,” he yawned. Turning his head, he spoke a little louder. “Friday? Confirm if Thor has entered the compound?”</p>
<p>“Confirmed,” the AI replied. “Arrival via the roof forty-five seconds ago.”</p>
<p>With a sigh, he shifted his weight back off of Darcy, who responded by snuggling into his side. “This mean you have to go to work?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Hope not.” It was always a possibility. “They’ll either call in the next few minutes, or it can wait till morning.”</p>
<p>“Hmm. Tell them to wait, I need you here.” Her voice was thick, like she was already drifting back into sleep, and within maybe thirty seconds more he could feel her breathing change and knew that she was out. He envied her ability to drop right off like that, and spent a while just watching her sleep, hearing the refrain of <em>I need you here</em> and adding it to his mental list of things to remember, to replay for himself on rougher days – though those seemed to be getting fewer and further between, lately.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He wasn’t aware of drifting off himself, but when he next opened his eyes it was half-light out, they hadn’t called him in yet, and Darcy was draped over him in her sleep like another blanket. She shifted without waking, her hand grasping at his metal shoulder as she murmured his name. “I’m here, doll,” he replied quietly, laying his hand over hers, wondering if she was having a bad dream; the previous day had certainly provided enough scope for one, for both of them. “I’m here.”</p>
<p>“Good.” He’d never heard her talk in her sleep before. “Need you. Don’t go away.”</p>
<p>Getting his other arm around her, he held her closer and brushed a light kiss against her forehead. “I’m not going anywhere, Darcy. I love you.”</p>
<p>“Mmm. Love you.” Her voice trailed off just long enough for Bucky to decide that her nightmare must be calming down, and then she writhed a little in his arms, her breathing heavier. “Bucky… oh…”</p>
<p>It took him a second for his sleepy mind to switch gears and realize that he’d been quite mistaken about what sort of dream she was having – a fact that was becoming increasingly obvious as she got more vocal. He wasn’t sure quite what to do with an armful of naked, sound-asleep, sexed-up Darcy, but his body had some definite ideas. “Sweetheart, you gotta wake up for this,” he said, running a hand down her back.</p>
<p>“Please, Bucky.” She dragged his name out into a moan; seemed like whatever was going on in her head, he was doing something right. Meanwhile in the real world, he was hard, and starting to sweat a little between the situation and the layer of blankets still on top of both of them.</p>
<p>He pushed the blankets down as far as he could easily reach, and brushed the hair back off Darcy’s face so he could kiss her cheek. “Wake up, Darcy,” he said, a little louder, and then felt it in her body when the consciousness filtered in. A moment later, she was blinking at him, a little confusion in her eyes at odds with the flush across her cheeks.</p>
<p>“Bucky, I… was I…?”</p>
<p>“Seemed like you needed something from me, doll, but I couldn’t help you out with any of that while you were still sleeping.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t…?”</p>
<p>“Course not. Wouldn’t take advantage while you’re out cold.” He kissed her forehead. “It’s still early, though. Go back to sleep if you want.”</p>
<p>Darcy shifted her weight, rocking her hips against his thigh. “I don’t know, you woke me up before the good part.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah? What was going on?”</p>
<p>“I was… oh god, I was sitting on one of the bar stools by the pool table, and you had my dress pushed up around my waist and you were going down on me.” She squirmed in his arms. “It felt so… real.”</p>
<p>Rolling her onto her back, he started inching down the bed. “I’m not taking this out to the lounge for anybody else to see, but I’ll happily finish the rest of that story for you right now. If you want.”</p>
<p>“Fuck, yes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That was all the encouragement he needed, but her loud moan the moment he opened his mouth onto her felt pretty damn good, too. His cock twitched for attention as his senses filled up with her taste and scent and sounds, but this was all about pleasing her. Sometimes it was still hard to believe that he was the one she’d chosen, the lucky bastard who got to lie here between her gorgeous thighs and explore her with his tongue and fingers till she cried out his name. It didn’t take long; seemed like the dream really had gotten her worked up.</p>
<p>Afterward, Bucky thought she might slip back into sleep – it was still earlier than she usually got up on a work day, even without everything that had gone down the day before – but instead she twisted her body round to push him down onto the bed. “Your turn.” Moving slow, like she was made of molasses, she slithered down the mattress, scattering messy kisses down his chest as he gasped in anticipation. Talk about a lucky bastard: it still surprised him every time, the fact that not only was she willing to do this, she openly relished it. “Watch me, Bucky.”</p>
<p>“Fuck, you know I’m watching, sweetheart.” He watched as she leaned in and ran the flat of her tongue up his cock from base to tip, then closed her mouth over him, her tongue swirling and teasing as she cupped a hand round his balls, her eyes on his all the while. She hadn’t gotten round to taking her makeup off the night before, and the sight of her red lips moving up and down his length was like a damn fantasy come to life. He was putty in her hands – always – and it didn’t take long before she reduced him to a sweaty, shaky mess. “Jesus, doll. You’re a deadly weapon, you know that?”</p>
<p>Laughing, she snuggled up beside him, her face tucked into the crook of his shoulder. “Mmmm, good morning.”</p>
<p>“Good night,” he replied, laughing with her, feeling boneless and weightless and very close to slipping back into sleep. It wasn’t even six-thirty yet, after all; he could still sleep in a little with his girl.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Of course, that was the very moment that his phone rang, with a tone he couldn’t ignore. Muttering a curse under his breath, he picked up. “Barnes.”</p>
<p>It was Bruce. “Hey man, I know it’s early. Thor’s back, and he wants to talk to you about the Loki thing. Like, off the record, at Jane’s place, before he goes toe-to-toe with Fury.”</p>
<p>Bucky sighed. “You sure Jane wants me knocking at her door at this hour?” He didn’t bother asking why Thor hadn’t called himself; the God of Thunder could manage a computer when necessary – and certainly knew how to use a television and play video games – but still refused to consider a phone.</p>
<p>“Jane’s already at the lab.”</p>
<p>Darcy groaned, clearly having overheard that, and slunk out of bed muttering something about a shower and proper working hours.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Bucky replied. “On my way.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Fluff? Fluff.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When he quietly tapped on Jane’s door a few minutes later, he was expecting Thor to answer. He was not, however, expecting Thor to envelop him in a bear hug and lift him a few inches off the ground; it took a split-second to remind his fight-or-flight instincts that it was a friendly gesture. “Uh, hi.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Thor said, setting him back down on his feet. “I know that you were there for Darcy, but thank you.”</p>
<p>“No need to thank me,” Bucky replied, scratching at the back of his neck. “Just glad Jane was okay.”</p>
<p>Thor took a deep breath. “You misunderstand me. I appreciate what you did for Jane, of course. I know that any of the team would have responded to Jane and Darcy being in distress, even if neither of us could have been there in time. And I know it wasn’t your intent, but… you saved my brother, too. There are some here who would have reacted far more… violently to the sight of Loki. And I couldn’t honestly blame them.”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to lie to you,” Bucky replied. “I was tempted. And if he lays hands on Darcy again, I’ll kill him. If she doesn’t do it herself first,” he added.</p>
<p>Thor nodded. “I understand, trust me. Loki has been a villain too much of his life. But he’s done good, too. When he died – or nearly died – he was on our side. I believe he still is. Thank you for keeping him alive so that we can see if I’m right.”</p>
<p>“What are they doing with him?”</p>
<p>“He’s in a cell at the moment. I’m hoping to persuade Fury and the others to let Loki stay here, in my custody, and perhaps work his way towards being a member of the team. It would mean I need to stay on Earth for a while, since I’m sure Jane wouldn’t thank me for leaving him in her care just now.”</p>
<p>Bucky blinked at him. “Wait. You’re saying move him in <em>here</em>?” He tried to picture what Darcy would say when she heard that Loki Odinson would be sleeping in her old room.</p>
<p>“Yes, with some safeguards of course, at first. Look, what I’m asking is – will you support me in this? I’m not asking you to take responsibility for him, or even have much to do with him, but some of the team will oppose this, and your voice counts for more than you think. Especially since you were there, and can attest to the fact that he didn’t harm Jane or Darcy.”</p>
<p>“This seems like a hell of a gamble,” Bucky replied, then shook his head. “But I know a lot of people said that about me, too, and for a long time. Can I talk to him? I trust you,” he added, when Thor looked surprised at the request. “But I’ve had a lot of practice assessing motive – for both sides. I need to see what my gut feeling about him is, when he isn’t threatening my girl.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He knew where the detention area was, but he hadn’t had call to visit the cells before; interrogation was sometimes something he had to do in the field, but back at base it fell to other people. There was a shaky moment when they stepped into the corridor and something about the cell bars, the light, the guards standing at attention, maybe even the smell, nearly sent him full-bore into a flashback. With a few deep breaths, he managed to swallow it back and keep his head in the game. Only one cell had a light on, and it was at the very end. Loki sat on the bench, head bowed, hands folded.</p>
<p>“Brother,” Thor began. “This is Bucky Barnes.”</p>
<p>Loki raised his head, but didn’t sit up straight. “We’ve met,” he replied. His expression seemed bland at first glance, but Bucky could see the slight raise of an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Give me a minute,” Bucky said, nodding for Thor to wait outside. When the door shut behind him, Bucky leaned against the opposite wall, debating what he actually wanted to know.</p>
<p>“Are you here to threaten me on behalf of your woman?” Loki asked.</p>
<p>“Pretty sure Darcy would rather threaten you herself, in person.”</p>
<p>To his surprise, Loki actually gave a short, rueful sort of laugh. “Indeed. She is fierce, for someone clearly untrained in combat. That weapon she carries is not to be trifled with.”</p>
<p>“Thor would agree.”</p>
<p>At that, Loki’s eyes lit up. “She used it on him? Oh, I <em>like</em> her. You must lead a <em>very</em> entertaining life.”</p>
<p>There was a part of Bucky that kind of wanted to laugh, and a much bigger part that didn’t want this conversation to be about Darcy. Not here, not with the guy who’d tried to abduct her less than twenty-four hours before. But the interaction was already giving him some information, the kind he was after. “Why are you here? You had to know that this is where you were going to end up,” he added, indicating the surroundings of the cell.</p>
<p>“I told Thor as much when he proposed bringing me back here, after the destruction of Asgard. But, loath though I am to admit it, he is all that I have left. We are not truly brothers, and I am not truly Asgardian, but Thor, and what is left of that world… I put no value on family, till I lost it.” Loki shook his head. “They call me the God of Lies, so I do not expect anyone to believe that I simply grew tired of running, but that is the truth of it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was a strange feeling, almost like looking in a mirror in a way: that bone-deep weariness bleeding out of Loki’s voice, the aura of someone accepting his fate because he knew he didn’t deserve better. Nodding to the prisoner, Bucky turned and strode back down the hallway, nearly colliding with Thor when he opened the door.</p>
<p>“Well?” Thor asked.</p>
<p>Bucky took a breath. “I need to talk to Darcy about this first.”</p>
<p>Thor looked like he was opening his mouth to say something, but Bucky was already halfway down the corridor, hoping he could still catch Darcy at home rather than having the conversation around a bunch of lab techs who probably had no idea a presumed-dead war criminal was a floor below them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In fact, she was already out the door, and almost ran into him as he came around the corner into the residential wing. “Hey, handsome,” she said, laying one hand on his chest as she stuffed her phone into her pocket with the other. “You forget something?”</p>
<p>He gestured towards their door. “C’mon back inside for a sec.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?” She ran the tip of her tongue over her bright red lips.</p>
<p>“Not like that, doll.” Leaning down, he kissed her forehead. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Confidential.”</p>
<p>Her face turned serious. “Okay.” When they got inside, she perched on the back of the couch. “Loki, I assume?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Pacing back and forth a little, he relayed how his past forty minutes or so had gone. “So,” he concluded. “On the one hand, Jane’s convinced he wasn’t really aiming to hurt the two of you, Thor’s sure the guy is redeemable… and talking to him, there’s nothing setting off any immediate alarm bells. But…”</p>
<p>“But Fury’s gonna have an aneurysm and want to send him to the Raft,” Darcy filled in. “Is that still a thing? Was it ever really a thing?”</p>
<p>“Not a thing any more, but yeah, it was,” he replied. “And you’re probably right about Fury, which is why Thor’s trying to get people on-side. That’s not the ‘but’ I was leading up to, though.”</p>
<p>“What is it, then?”</p>
<p>“What I want to know is, after what happened yesterday, how would you feel knowing the guy’s maybe walking around here? If they ever put him on the team, or even just gave him the run of the place. If you’d be scared, or if seeing him would be… a trigger for you, then I can’t support any of this.”</p>
<p>To his surprise, Darcy looked puzzled. “Why? Because you sound like you’d be in favour, otherwise.”</p>
<p>He shook his head. “What I think doesn’t matter. What Thor or Jane think doesn’t matter. Honest answer, doll.”</p>
<p>“Okay, first of all, what you think <em>does</em> matter, because I trust your judgement. And theirs, but especially yours. But honest answer? I’ve dealt with SHIELD, with a killer robot thing, with the whole Convergence bullshit… I’ve also been mugged once, street-harassed on the daily, and stalked, before I even got mixed up in this whole superhero thing. So no, in the grand scheme of things, bumping into Loki in the canteen would not really upset my equilibrium any more than anything else that goes on around here. And I mean, if he’s alive, he might as well be here, where we all know what he’s up to and there’s a bunch of people who can take his ass down if Thor’s wrong about everything. And… come here.” Reaching out, she grabbed his hand, making him stop his pacing and turn to face her. “I’m more worried about this being weird and hard for you, honestly. Because I can see those wheels turning in your head, probably thinking there’s more parallels with Steve Rogers bringing you back from Hydra than there actually are. So if you’re cool with this, I am.”</p>
<p>Her turning it around on him, seeing what was going on in his head almost before he’d even figured it out, threw him for a bit of a loop. But that was his Darcy. “You sure?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she replied, like it was nothing at all. “But really, what I think doesn’t matter that much. You’re the superhero, you and half the rest of the place. I don’t get a vote when it comes to this kind of thing.”</p>
<p>“Yes, you fucking do.” A wave of emotion rushed up his throat, making the first words sound almost angry; he took a breath and softened his tone. “Sweetheart, this stuff, it’s my job – and it wasn’t like I had a lot of choice about that, given what I am. But you… this… us… this is what matters. This is my <em>life.</em>” <em>For the rest of my life</em> were the next words that almost spilled off his tongue; he bit it back, but then realized, with a flash of clarity that hit him like a brick wall, that he had to say it, had to take the chance. “For the rest of my life,” he said aloud. The little softening in Darcy’s expression gave him the courage to see this through – not the way he’d ever imagined, not the way he would have planned it, but at least he could get down on one knee and look up into her eyes. “If you’ll have me. I know this isn’t the right way to do this, or the right time, I swear I’ll do this all again properly with a ring and everything, when it isn’t a Thursday morning when we’re both late for work talking about our friend’s crazy brother locked up downstairs, and not just here on the back of the couch – with Alpine clawing at my back,” he added, as the kitten came out of nowhere and started trying to catch at the loose hem of his shirt. “But Darcy, I’ve got to know… will you marry me?”</p>
<p>For what felt like the longest couple of seconds of his life, Darcy just stared at him, open-mouthed. But then she launched herself in his direction, wrapping her arms round his shoulders and nearly sending both of them sprawling. “Yes. Fuck yes,” she added, laughing. “Oh my god. Yes, I will marry you, Bucky Barnes. You’re the love of my goddamn life. Of course I’ll marry you.”</p>
<p>“I mean, I know I haven’t even met your family or anything…”</p>
<p>She laid a hand over his mouth till he stopped talking. “Fuck that. You’ll meet my parents sometime, whatever. But this is my family, here. <em>You’re </em>my family. Oh my god. You officially will be. You’re gonna be my <em>husband.</em>” She sounded as dizzy as he felt, with wide eyes and a wider smile. “I’m gonna be Darcy Barnes.”</p>
<p>Hearing her say it, he was pretty sure his heart stopped beating for a second. “Yeah? I didn’t think anybody changed their names like that anymore.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well… what can I say, my boyfriend – I mean, my <em>fiancé</em> – is vintage, you know?” Laughing, she pulled him closer. “Now, are you gonna kiss me and seal the deal here, or not?”</p>
<p>Still not quite believing the turn his morning had taken, he cradled her face in both his hands and kissed her – gently at first, as if he might wake himself up and find out the whole thing was a dream. “Love you,” he told her, between kisses. “Still think you might be crazy to want me, but I love you so fucking much.”</p>
<p>“Not crazy,” she replied, molding her body against his as he trailed his mouth down her neck and buried his face in her hair. “I’m a freaking genius. Made a move on the hottest guy on the damn planet before anybody else could snap him up. Call me the luckiest woman on Earth. Oh my god. Are we telling people?” she asked, then ran her fingernails down the back of his neck. “I mean like, right now, today? Should we keep this to ourselves while the whole Loki thing gets sorted out?”</p>
<p>“Don’t know if I could, sweetheart.” Lifting his face to hers, he kissed her again. “Kinda want to shout it from the rooftops right now.”</p>
<p>“Me too. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be written all over my face for the foreseeable future. And I’ve got <em>no</em> poker face. And we’ve gotta go to work. And I bet Thor’s waiting around for your answer about Loki, the second we walk out of here. But can we just… celebrate a little, before we go face the world? For like… fifteen minutes?”</p>
<p>“Fifteen minutes?”</p>
<p>She slid one hand down and under his shirt. “Hmmm, maybe half an hour. Or an hour. An hour. It’s not even eight yet. You can spare an hour for your future wife, right?” she added, winking at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His future wife. Those had to be just about the best words he’d ever heard. Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her till his lungs demanded he stop for a breath. “For you, doll? All the time in the world.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading, and especially for commenting! I have one more instalment planned for these crazy kids...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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